Pandemic effects are subsiding in Philly, but longstanding challenges persist, Pew report finds

The pandemic’s effects on Philadelphia look like they are finally starting to subside.

Among the bright spots are a population back on the upswing, a 10-year low in the number of homicides and an overall decrease in violent crime, and the lowest poverty rate since the turn of the millennium, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts’ latest “State of the City” report, released Monday.

But struggles with overdose deaths, deep poverty, and homelessness remain. And where there was progress, much of it has not been spread equally across demographic groups.

So, in many ways, Pew’s findings were something of a mixed bag for Philadelphia. Or, as the report puts it, the city may be entering “a new and different phase” post-pandemic.

“Many of these pandemic challenges are fading,” said Katie Martin, project director at Pew. “But there are new challenges, as well as some old, that the city is facing,”

Here are some of the report’s takeaways.

Homicides and shootings skyrocketed during the pandemic, but as of 2024, they were at their lowest levels in a decade, Pew’s report found. Last year, Philadelphia had 269 homicides, down a whopping 52% from the peak year of 2021, when there were 562 killings.

Shootings, likewise, numbered 1,080 for 2024, representing a 54% drop from 2021, which tallied 2,325.

Overall, Philadelphia recorded what Pew called “its fewest violent crimes in the 21st century” last year, with 13,088 recorded incidents of offenses like homicides, rapes, and robberies. That dramatic decrease brings the city to “historically low” violent crime levels, Martin said.

“During the pandemic, the fear was that this was a new plateau for Philadelphia,” Martin said. “It looks like there’s a bell curve.”

» READ MORE: Philly saw a historic drop in murders in 2024. What changed?

Philadelphia’s population increased for the first time in four years in 2024, growing by more than 10,000 residents in what was the city’s first population expansion since the start of the pandemic. But the number of people living in the city was still down 1.9% compared with 2020.

And, as Pew’s report notes, getting back to pre-pandemic numbers could be a challenge. Historically, the city’s population growth has largely been attributable to immigration, with immigrants making up about 15% of the city’s residents in 2023, the report found — compared with just 9% in 2000.

But with President Donald Trump’s administration targeting immigration, “the flow of immigrants into the country is likely to subside,” which could pose some hurdles for the city in maintaining its current population levels, Pew said in its report. As a result, it remains unclear how Philadelphia and other cities with substantial foreign-born populations will be affected by changing federal policies on immigration.

» READ MORE: Philly added about 10,500 residents in 2024, starting to reverse pandemic decline

The city’s poverty rate stood at 20.3% in 2023 — the lowest it has been since the start of the new millennium. In fact, in the last decade, the proportion of city residents living in poverty — defined as a household of four with an income of $32,150 or less — has fallen by six points, meaning there are about 91,000 fewer people in that economic bracket, Pew’s report noted.

But even with that decrease, about 320,000 residents still live below the poverty line, Martin said. And in recent years, there have been only marginal decreases in deep poverty, which is considered a household of four living on an annual income of $16,075 or less.

Poverty rates are split largely along demographic lines, with Hispanic residents having the highest poverty rate, about 26% as of 2023. Still, that proportion has fallen sharply from 2013, when Hispanic residents had a 44% poverty rate, Pew’s report noted. But the actual number of Hispanic residents living in poverty has not declined, Martin said; rather, the city’s Hispanic population has grown over that time.

And while poverty has decreased in recent years, the number of residents experiencing homelessness in 2024 jumped 10% compared with 2023. A January 2024 count conducted by the city found 5,191 people experiencing homelessness, with a vast majority being adult (82.4%) males (61%) who are Black (66.5%) and non-Hispanic (88.7%), according to the report.

Philadelphia’s median household income, meanwhile, remained well below the national average of $77,719, with 2023 seeing the city’s median rise to $60,302 — a 7% increase over 2022.

» READ MORE: Philly poverty rate sees largest drop in 10 years, but we’re still the poorest big city

Unemployment in 2024 averaged about 4.5%, which was among the lowest levels in “several decades,” Pew’s report found, but it still remained above the national average of 4.1% and the metro area’s 3.8% rate. Compared with other cities, Philly was about middle of the pack, with Washington (5.5%), Chicago (5.7%), and Detroit (9.5%) having higher unemployment.

Martin, however, noted that the unemployment level’s drop is good news, even if it remains above metro and national levels. Since the Great Recession, the city’s unemployment rate had long been about a percentage point higher than its national and metro counterparts, so the city is still “narrowing the gap,” she said.

The number of jobs in Philadelphia in 2024, meanwhile, increased by 2.1%, outpacing the national figure by nearly a full percentage point. And for the first time in years in 2023, the percentage of adults with a college degree declined slightly. For at least the last decade, that category has steadily increased, but in 2023, it decreased to 35.7% from 36.3% in 2022.

Martin called that change a trend to watch and noted that it is within the margin of error. Being a tick down may not be a concern, but it will be important to see if that number continues to fall. And, she said, the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds with at least a bachelor’s degree continues to grow, currently standing at over 50%.

“The younger cohort continues to be more educated year over year. That’s a really positive direction for the city,” Martin said.

As impending cuts to SEPTA service around the region approach without additional state funding, the agency’s ridership return appeared to slow in 2024, Pew’s report found.

Ridership on the buses, trolleys, and subways of SEPTA’s City Transit Division, for example, was twice as high as it was during the depths of the pandemic in 2021 — but still 20% below what it was in 2019. Regional Rail ridership, meanwhile, was three times as high as 2021, but likewise not back to pre-pandemic levels.

Growth rates for both SEPTA and its New Jersey counterpart, PATCO, slowed in 2024, indicating that “they may be experiencing permanent decreases in ridership” brought on by the pandemic, the report noted.

Amtrak, however, saw what Pew called a “significant increase in ridership into and out of” the city between September 2022 and 2023. In fiscal 2023, there were 5.8 million more rides, and Philly’s 30th Street Station had the second-highest increase in stops in the Northeast Corridor, behind Wilmington.

Philadelphia International Airport also saw increases in passenger traffic, but is still below pre-pandemic levels. In 2024, 30.8 million people flew on domestic or international flights there, which, while an increase over the previous year, falls short of 2019’s pre-pandemic peak of 33 million.

“Air travel really has returned,” Martin said.

Though drug overdoses remain a leading cause of death in Philadelphia, if city officials’ estimates are accurate, 2024 may signal something of a turnaround. Last year, Pew said, officials estimated that about 1,100 people died of unintentional overdoses — a 22% decrease compared with 2022, when there were 1,413 deaths. If correct, that figure would be the lowest number of drug deaths since 2016, the report said.

» READ MORE: More older Black men in Philadelphia are dying of overdoses than many other places in the U.S.: ‘It’s like a secret disease’

More Philadelphians died of heart disease and cancer than drug overdoses in 2023, which was also true pre-pandemic. But as of that year, life expectancy was up to 76.2 years, which roughly matches pre-pandemic levels of 76.7, Martin said.

COVID-19, however, finally fell out of the top 10 causes of death for city residents in 2023, now ranking 13th. That year, fewer than 175 Philadelphians died of the illness, Pew noted.